To work it without FLASH IDE (I am using FlashDevelop), I created a Slider.as file where com.las3.ui.OpenSlider is being imported.

package
{
  import flash.display.Sprite;
  import flash.events.Event;
  import org.flashdevelop.utils.FlashConnect;
  import com.las3.ui.OpenSlider;
  /**
   * ...
   * @author NIK Inc.
   */
  public class Slider extends Sprite
  {

    public function Slider()
    {
      var scribbleBtn:ScribbleBtn = new ScribbleBtn();
      addChild(scribbleBtn);
      var scribbleLine:ScribbleLine = new ScribbleLine();
      addChild(scribbleLine);
      scribbleLine.x = 100;
      scribbleLine.y = 100;
      var scribbleSlider:OpenSlider = new OpenSlider(scribbleBtn, scribbleLine);
      scribbleSlider.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, onSliderChange,false, 0, true);
    }

    private function onSliderChange(evt:Event):void {
      FlashConnect.trace(evt.target.percent);
    }
  }

}
import flash.display.Loader;
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.net.FileFilter;
import flash.net.URLRequest;

class ScribbleBtn extends MovieClip {
  function ScribbleBtn() {
    graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
    graphics.drawCircle(0, 0, 10);
    graphics.endFill();
  }
}

class ScribbleLine extends MovieClip {
  function ScribbleLine() {
    graphics.moveTo(0, 0);
    graphics.lineStyle(1, 0x330033);
    graphics.lineTo(100, 0);
  }
}

Thank you so much.

I tried the code below (without the TimerEvent) and that didn’t work. Any idea why ?

package
{
  //import flash.utils.Timer;
  //import flash.events.TimerEvent;
  import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
  import flash.events.Event;

  public class DispatchEventExample extends EventDispatcher {

    //private var _timer:Timer;

    public function DispatchEventExample() {
      // _timer = new Timer(1000);
      //_timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, test,false, 0, true);
      //_timer.start();
      test();
    }

    //private function test(evt:TimerEvent):void {
    private function test():void {
      dispatchEvent(new Event("onQueryComplete"));
    }

  }

}

“I typically prefer not to include wild cards simply because, if you cite every class, you can see at a glance which classes you’re using.”

Agreed.

Using a wild card does not include a lot of classes you’re not using into your project. In fact, you can look at it htis way: The import statement doesn’t include any classes in your project. All the import statement does is make the classes available to the compiler. During compilation, only the classes you actually use in your code will be compiled.

I typically prefer not to include wild cards simply because, if you cite every class, you can see at a glance which classes you’re using. It also may make the compilation process quicker, but I’ve never tested that and assume that the *average* benefit there is negligible. In any case, this has no effect of runtime performance or file size.

import flash.events.*;
import flash.geom.*;

is not good practice. It includes allot of classes that you are not using into your project. You only need 4 of the classes:

import flash.geom.Rectangle;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.events.EventDispatcher;

1. There is no need to call onChange using an enterFrameEvent. I changed it use the MouseMove event.
2. In the onChange function, I check that the new percent is different, and only dispatch the CHANGE event if it is.
3. You cast Numbers to ints in a few places. A quick performance test shows me that this line:

newPercent = (int(_button.x) - int(_dragArea.left)) / int(_dragArea.width);

takes about 8x longer to process then:

newPercent = (_button.x - _dragArea.left) / _dragArea.width;

I don’t see any benefit to casting those Numbers to ints, so I removed all (I think 6) casts to ints that you make.

Using this as your onChange function is much more efficient, gains in precision by not casting to ints, and fires the CHANGE event only when the button position actually changes, which is very import- you don’t know how much processing a user will do on every CHANGE event, so it should happen only when it needs to:

private function onChange(evt:Event):void {
     var newPercent: Number;
     if (_horizontal) {
	newPercent = (_button.x - _dragArea.left) / _dragArea.width;
     }
     else{
          newPercent = (_dragArea.bottom - _button.y) / _dragArea.height;
     }
     if (newPercent != _percent) {
          _percent = newPercent;
	  dispatchEvent(new Event(Event.CHANGE));
     }
}

4. I changed the variable that holds the mode (”horizontal” or “vertical”) to be a boolean variable named “_horizontal”. It will only ever be one of two possibilities, so there is no need to use all the extra memory to hold this as a String, and when checking the mode, Flash (and all languages) can check a boolean variable much faster then a string comparison.

I don’t know if you did these things for a specific reason or just weren’t thinking about performance, as this is really only meant to demonstrate the use of the dispatchEvent() function, but seeing as this has been DLed over 1500 times, I think it would be worth it to bring it up to top performance.

I would like to know your thoughts on these points, and please correct me if I am wrong about anything I said. These may all seem like small things, but in my experience these details accumulate in any project and can seriously hurt performance. Besides the points I mentioned, I love the class and thank you for making it available! It’s a really good example of using dispathEvent() that can be used in real life. I plan on using it for all my scroll bars for now on.

public override function clone():Event {
return new CustomEvent(type, eventData, bubbles, cancelable);
}